A little bit controversy certainly isn't hurting, and may well be helping, Avril Lavigne's latest video for her single "Hello Kitty."

Though some have complained about Lavigne's use of Japanese fetish imagery in the clip, it's already gotten more than 15 million views. According to Billboard, critics in Japan are giving it mostly thumbs-up according to social media expert Nobuyuki Hayashi.

"Searches in the Japanese Twittersphere and blogosphere show that most of the reactions were favorable," Hayashi says. "The people who are blaming the artist for racism are non-Japanese...but most Japanese people are not taking it that seriously."

Lavigne, meanwhile, tells us that the electronic-flavored "Hello Kitty" represents a creative stretch for her:

"It's a really playful song. I realized that we had to really, um, bring it on the production side... "That song took a long time because I had a vision for it and I wanted to take it to a different level than it was so, so it's, yeah, it's different more me to have a song that sounds like that. But I like having that. I look forward to kinda seeing if it gets played in the clubs and who likes it."

Lavigne is currently on tour in South America and begins a tour with the Backstreet Boys on May 22 in Seattle.